www.keithvargo.org

I am a writer, former fighter, and martial artist based in Tokyo, Japan. I was a contributing editor for Black Belt magazine for 17 years, where I wrote a popular monthly column called "Way of the Warrior." I've also written for FightSport magazine, Karate/Kung-fu Illustrated, Sports World Japan, Maxfighting.com, and MMA-Japan.net. Click on the links in the lefthand column of this site to read some samples of my writing.

I am also the author of three books. The most recent is Kakutougi Boom: Reports from the Glory Years of Combat Sports in Japan. It's a series of books that feature my fight writing from the most exciting and compelling era in the history of combat sports. Volume I of Kakutougi Boom is currently available. Volume II will follow in 2025 and Volume III after that. My other two books are The Soul of Fighting: Martial Arts, Combat Sports, and the Search for Warrior Wisdom and Philosophy of Fighting: Morals and Motivations of the Modern Warrior. Those books are collections of my best columns from Black Belt, spanning nearly two decades of writing for the world's premier martial arts magazine. Both explore how morality, mysticism, aesthetics, science, and human nature cross paths in the fighting arts. Click the book covers in the left column to learn more about them or order copies.

Below are some reviews of my books (with links). To see more reader reactions to my work, check the brief reviews on Amazon.

I began my martial arts training in 1984 under judo champion Jordie Hamilton and later attended Radford University, participating in the United States' only college-level martial arts training program. In 1996 I graduated from Radford with a B.A. in Psychology and a Certificate in Multi-Cultural Self-Defense.

Since moving to Tokyo in 2000, I've devoted myself to mixed martial arts, training for 10 years at the world-renowned Takada Dojo and learning from top fighters like Kazushi Sakuraba, Akira Shoji, and Yoon Dong Sik. I was also the first non-Japanese to earn a shodan (1st degree black belt) from Takada Dojo. More recently, I've trained with Shooto legend and ZST tag-team grappling champion Naoya Uematsu and welterweight grappling champion Kohei Yasumi.

My writing is informed by my experiences as an active competitor. I fought both as an amateur in Pre-PRIDE, PRIDE Challenge, and Shootboxing, and as a pro or semi-pro in DEEP, BoxFight and Kingdom Ehrgeiz events. I've also fought in many submission wrestling matches and tournaments as well. Below is an outline of that competitive history. For more details and additional pictures, click on the links under "Fight Results" below.

In 2001, I participated in Tokai TV's Pre-PRIDE, an MMA reality show. The fighters on the show trained at the best gyms in Japan for a few months and then fought each other in an 8-man, one-night tournament. The prize was a chance to turn pro and fight in a PRIDE Fighting Championship event. Pre-PRIDE helped launch the careers of many fighters, including UFC fighters Yushin Okami and Eiji Mitsuoka. In the Pre-PRIDE 3 tournament, I made it to the final match, but lost by decision. The picture to the left is from that match. You can even see the first president of the PRIDE Fighting Championships, the late Naoto Morishita, watching the action in the bottom lefthand corner.

My best MMA performances were in DEEP and Kingdom Ehrgeiz events. In June 2007, I fought in an event for the DEEP promotion called Oyaji DEEP. It was an event for older fighters that was broadcast on Samurai TV. In it, competitors age 35 and up fought under full MMA rules. I was matched up against a judo black belt and scored a TKO in 14 seconds, my fastest win.
My fight in Kingdom Ehrgeiz was at their 10th Anniversary show and I fought under the name "John Gabriel." It was a Kingdom-rules match, meaning MMA rules with pro-wrestling rope escapes and "catch" points for near submissions. My opponent was bare-knuckles karate fighter and bench press champion Mitsuyuki Kaneya. After a brief exchange of punches, we clinched, I scored a takedown, and then finished the fight with an arm lock at 1:27 of the first round.

My best showing came in March 2007 at the 17th All-Japan Amateur Shootboxing Tournament. Winning this tournament is often a stepping stone to a pro fight career. In the past, it's been won by top fighters like shootboxing welterweight champion Kenichi Ogata and MMA star Hayato "Mach" Sakurai.
Again, I fought three times in one day. This time, I won all of my matches decisively, even knocking the opponent down three times in the final match. That made me the 2007 All-Japan Amateur Heavyweight Shootboxing Champion.

Shortly after turning 40, I fought the biggest single match of my small-time fight career, a professional boxing match at Tokyo's fabled Korakuen Hall. I fought in front of a packed house on the BoxFight: First Impact undercard, sharing the bill with K-1 kickboxing champ Hiromi Amada and MMA legend Daiju Takase. Again fighting under the ring name "John Gabriel," I was matched up against 27 year old MMA fighter Eisuke Suzuki. I managed to stayed competitive with my younger opponent by relying on defense and counterpunching and ended up narrowly winning the match via majority decision.

In addition to MMA and boxing, I've also fought in a number of submission wrestling matches and tournaments. In August 2016, I entered the 1st Asian Combat Wrestling Tournament and, at the age of 46, managed to place first in both the men's 100+ kilo division and the master's A (over 40) 100+ kilo division. I also placed 1st at the 2017 World Combat Wrestling Championships in the men's veterans B (over 45) 100+ kilo division. My last professional grappling match was in November 2013. Then 43, I was matched with 25 year old Pancrase and DEEP veteran Tatsuhiko Nishizaka and fought to a draw at the Kingdom Spirit 2013 show. But my biggest grappling match was in January 2010. That's when I fought PRIDE, K-1, and UFC veteran Satoshi Honma in the DEEP X Future King tournament, narrowly beat him via judges' decision, and won the heavyweight division.

As mentioned above, I'm currently working on series of books collectively called Kakutougi Boom: Reports from the Glory Years of Combat Sports in Japan. This series will include almost every piece of fight sport journalism I wrote during the reign of legendary fight promotions like PRIDE and K-1. Readers will get to see those times through the eyes of someone who was there for the most exciting and compelling era in the history of fighting sports. Kakutougi Boom: Volume I is available now and Volume II will be available in 2025. Readers who really want to look ahead can check out a free sample chapter from Kakutougi Boom: Volume III in the "Coming Soon" section on the left.

After finishing that book series, I'll be working on a few other projects. The first is a 10th anniversary edition of my second book, The Soul of Fight: Martial Arts, Combat Sports, and the Search for Warrior Wisdom. It will include a lot of new material: old magazine columns from my pre-Black Belt magazine days, some magazine features that were published after The Soul of Fighting came out in 2016, and a number of previously unpublished writings. After that, I'll be working on a practical guide to doing martial arts and fighting sports as you get older. It will be for everyone who loves fighting as a sport, art or way of life and wants to either start or continue them in middle age and beyond. Sometime after that, I plan on publishing a training diary I wrote during my years at Takada Dojo. It will include techniques I learned there during the kakutougi boom and anecdotes about training and fighting during those times.

Below are links to the results of some of my matches. Click on them for details. (Sorry, most of the pages are in Japanese only.)